Can the controversial FDA approval of Aduhelm backfire and delay the discovery of actual Alzheimer’s treatments? (Yes, it can)

The U.S. Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion (FDA) recent­ly approved adu­canum­ab, the first treat­ment that aims to slow the pro­gres­sion of Alzheimer’s dis­ease. But approval of the drug has pro­voked mixed reac­tions from the sci­en­tif­ic com­mu­ni­ty. Alzheimer’s dis­ease is char­ac­ter­ized by pro­gres­sive mem­o­ry loss, spa­tial dis­ori­en­ta­tion and many oth­er cog­ni­tive and behav­iour­al dis­or­ders that ulti­mate­ly lead…

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Cumulus Neuroscience raises $8.3M to develop EEG-based wireless ‘Fitbit for the brain’

Belfast-based Cumu­lus rais­es €6.9m for its ‘Fit­bit for the brain’ (The Irish Times): … For­mer­ly known as Brain­Wave­Bank, the com­pa­ny has devel­oped a wire­less elec­troen­cephalo­gram (EEG) head­set and pro­pri­etary soft­ware plat­form that use advanced ana­lyt­ics and machine learn­ing to mea­sure cog­ni­tive fit­ness. “This fund­ing will allow us to build on the ground-break­ing advances we have made…

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The NIH starts spending $1.5 billion in new Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neuro-technologies (BRAIN) projects

___ NIH Starts to Spend $4.8 Bil­lion in “Extra” Cures Drug Research Mon­ey (P&T Com­mu­ni­ty): “The Nation­al Insti­tutes of Health (NIH) launched 110 new brain research projects in the fis­cal year end­ing last Sep­tem­ber (2017) with the first por­tion of the $1.5 bil­lion over 10 years it will hope­ful­ly receive from the 21st Cen­tu­ry Cures…

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Survey: Parents view Exercise as more effective than Prescription Medications to treat children with ADHD

Con­sid­er how research sup­port for ADHD treat­ments are typ­i­cal­ly estab­lished. The ‘gold-stan­­dard’ approach would be a ran­­dom­ized-con­trolled tri­al in which chil­dren with ADHD are ran­dom­ly assigned to the treat­ment or con­trol group. The treat­ment, what­ev­er it hap­pens to be, would be care­ful­ly imple­ment­ed in a research-based pro­to­col. If possible

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Can better cognitive testing platforms accelerate pharma’s Alzheimer’s research and development efforts?

. Alzheimer’s cure behind the boom in brain sci­ence (Finan­cial Review): “Bio­gen is one of many mem­bers of big phar­ma seek­ing the block­buster drug which will inevitably be worth mul­ti­ple bil­lions of dol­lars. Big phar­ma in the US spends about $US5 bil­lion a year on Alzheimer’s research and devel­op­ment. Expo­nen­tial growth in the dis­ease over…

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